Bradley back on the witness stand in Edwards trial

Natalie Gott

Monday, March 13, 2000 | 10:22 a.m.

BATON ROUGE, La. - A former casino executive today ended four days of testimony in Edwin Edwards' federal racketeering trial with the admission that he knew of nothing Edwards did to thwart his company's efforts to get a riverboat casino license.

But Mark Bradley insisted to the end that he felt Edwards' friend and codefendant, Bobby Johnson, could make good on alleged threats to have Edwards kill the license.

Edwards, Johnson, cattleman Cecil Brown and four other defendants have been on trial since Jan. 10, charged with carrying out a series of schemes to manipulate the state's riverboat casino licensing process kickbacks. Prosecutors say the schemes took place before and after Edwards served his fourth term as governor from 1992-1996.

In this part of the trial, which prosecutors have dubbed the "Jazz Scheme," Johnson and Brown are accused of trying to extort a 12.5 percent ownership interest in Jazz Enterprises Inc.

In exchange, Johnson promised to guarantee the company a riverboat casino license, prosecutors claim. Johnson also said he could kill the license if the deal wasn't struck, prosecutors said.

But Jazz never paid Johnson. Jazz received its license in July 1994 and opened the Belle of Baton Rouge casino.

Bradley secretly recorded several conversations he had with Johnson while the alleged plot occurred. Those tapes have been played in court to back up Bradley's testimony.

Under questioning today by Edwards' lawyer Daniel Small, Johnson again recounted a meeting with Edwards that Johnson arranged at the Governor's Mansion on April 8, 1994.

It included a brief talk with Edwards in a mansion hallway, during which Edwards put his arm on Johnson's back or shoulder and said, "Bobby's a good man," according to Bradley.

When asked by Small if the meeting was basically just innocuous, friendly small talk, Bradley denied that. Small then showed Bradley his federal grand jury testimony, in which Bradley had used those exact words.

But Bradley insisted today that the meeting was more important than those words indicated because he felt even more threatened than he had previously. "We were at the mansion, the governor's house. I had gone there with Bobby Johnson. You cannot say this was Mr. Joe Blow down the street. This was the most powerful man in Louisiana," Bradley said.

Small then asked Bradley to name anything Edwards may have done to hurt or help Jazz in their application for a riverboat casino license. Bradley could not name anything.

Brown's attorney, Rebecca Hudsmith, got her turn to defend her client late Friday afternoon during questioning Bradley, who had been testifying since Wednesday.

Bradley testified he felt threatened by Brown because he was well-connected to the former governor.

But Hudsmith said Bradley had spoken to Brown only twice - once at a lunch meeting with Johnson and a lawyer, and another time on the telephone.

Bradley said just having Brown show up at lunch was enough for him to feel threatened.

"In other words, he could have said not a single word, and you felt threatened?" Hudsmith asked.

Bradley responded that he had read several newspaper articles that mentioned Brown's close friendship with Edwards.

According to the tape recording made at the lunch on April 18, 1994, Brown told several stories about his outings with Edwards. At the end of the lunch, he asks Bradley to discuss the details of Johnson's plan to get 12.5 percent from Jazz.

"It's an ownership interest and that's 12.5 percent of a 100 percent?" Brown asked on the tape.

Bradley told Brown he was correct, according to the tape.